The Hindu Business Line : Poor infrastructure hits inland water transport

THE viability of the inland water transport (IWT) sector would depend on the development of infrastructure, said Commodore (Retd) P. Tayal, CMD of the Central Inland Water Transport Corporation (CIWTC), the public sector river transport company, drawing attention to myriad problems facing his organisation due to the lack of infrastructure.

Addressing the fifth national convention of the Asian Council of Logistics Management here, Mr Tayal said the biggest constraint was the lack of navigability of the Hooghly river, causing enormous problems in maintaining regular river services on the National Waterways Number 1 i.e. Kolkata/Haldia - Allahabad stretch of the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly river system.

"One of our vessels was grounded for several months near Patna as there was not enough water in the river," he said.

Next, was the absence of channel marking. The river might be wide but the width of the navigable channel was small.

"The ADB experts are currently undertaking studies on it," he said.

Third, in many places, terminals were not available even as the cargo inducement was there. The Inland Waterway Authority of India is now constructing two terminals at Guwahati and Patna.

Even where terminals were already located, there were different kinds of problems. For example, the trucks were not allowed to enter the Jagannath Ghat terminal within the Kolkata Dock System during the day time, making loading/unloading possible only during night and the workers in the night shift had to be paid more.

Among other problems were the absence of GPS systems on board the vessels and night navigation facilities in the river, the stranglehold of mafia in the port area, lack of modern vessels and multiple handling adding to the cost. Also, only low-freighted items are now moved by the river route. He hoped that the Kolkata Port Trust's decision to transport containers by the river route between the Kolkata Dock System and Haldia and the KDS and Sagar Island would yield fruits.

Mr Tayal felt there should be a comprehensive transport policy such that different modes of transport, instead of competing with one another, could be assigned to play its due role in the economy.

Mr P. Sengupta, Chief Operations Manager, South Eastern Railway, stated that if the environment protection aspect was taken into account, then the railway freight should be much higher than at present.

Compared to road transportation, the railways was much more environment-friendly, causing minimum damage to the environment.

Yet, this aspect, as he regretted, was not taken into account at the time of pricing of the railway services; instead, there was the compulsion of cross-subsidisation to keep the passenger fares at the low level.

Right now the price differential between rail and road transportation was about Rs 500 per tonne, with road transportation being costlier, he said.

Mr Swapan Chakraborti, former Deputy Chairman of the Kolkata Port Trust in-charge of Haldia dock, said the development of a port and its hinterland was inter-linked. Just as the growth of the port depended on the level of economic activities in the hinterland, the development of the port also contributed a lot to the growth of the hinterland, he said drawing from his experiences at the Haldia dock.

He emphasised the need for pushing through the special economic zones to neutralise the location disadvantage a State might have in setting up certain industries.

Earlier, Mr M.P.M. Menon, former Indian Ambassador to Brazil, in his keynote address, emphasised the need for an integrated transport system in the country.

"An integrated system will not only make multimodalism a reality but will also benefit individual transport services such as shipping, rail and road, and, more important, create an environment where all costs of production and distribution will be optimised," Mr Menon observed.

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